All three Maine delegates to the New England Council voted with the majority to punt on the groundfish plan — placing the onus for a decision on federal fisheries managers in distant Washington, D.C. Then these same delegates were among the chorus protesting the federal court decision that in effect puts a judge in Washington, D.C., in charge of the region’s fisheries.
But we can’t have it both ways: we cannot walk away from making hard decisions at the New England Fisheries Management Council, then decry the actions of organizations such as the Conservation Law Foundation for successfully bringing lawsuits.
Washington, D.C., is not the appropriate place to solve the fisheries management problems of the Gulf of Maine, even if there are clear-eyed judges and dedicated bureaucrats involved (a questionable assumption at best). The National Marine Fisheries Service headquarters staff in Washington is currently badly distracted — some might say paralyzed — with its involvement in over 100 fisheries management lawsuits from around the country. It’s unlikely this beleaguered agency is going to come up with solutions tailored to work at the local level.
The only place to work out the incredibly complex and difficult issues of managing our fisheries resources in the region is here at home, by bringing the communities of fishermen together with credible scientists and relevant research findings. It is only through a detailed process of analyzing and understanding our local ecology and local economic pain, and then taking that understanding into account, that we will make progress on the region’s intractable fisheries problems.
To quote Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings….” We cannot look to the heavens for answers; they must come from ourselves.
One particularly good idea, outlined in Ben Neal’s essay on the lawsuit elsewhere in this issue, comes from Ted Ames of the Stonington Fisheries Alliance. Ames proposes recognizing the regional nature of fish stocks, dividing the region into smaller units with limited, community-based access. It’s an approach that sounds like lobster management to us, and if the success of that fishery’s conservation-minded approach means anything, it’s worth taking very seriously. The judge may not be in a position to impose this approach on the parties, but she might suggest that they call Ted Ames.